---
title: Sundrop
date: 25 Jun 2017
...

It gets lonely up here, you know. You spend your days floating among millions
of your brothers and sisters, but none of them speak. They float along, as
somber as you, passing their time until the day they fall to their death. It's
the only routine I've ever known -- mind coming up here to join?

Maybe it's peaceful to walk through the air devoid of responsibilities. I have
no need for food, shelter, or water; I just sit and bathe in the sun. I hear
that's what the ground's oversized monkeys want. I think they'd change their
minds about "relaxation" if they knew what that really meant.

I had always believed I would be like the others. That I would live out my days
until I fall. There's no pride in the idea, but it's all I'd ever known.
Sometimes I'd look over the horizon and dream of "purpose", whatever that
meant. Somewhere out there -- somewhere across the elusive abyss -- somewhere
there is hope for my kind. I think.

At least that's the sentiment I picked up listening to potbellies down below.

---

Two men walked side-by-side across the plains, chatting with the other noisily.
I squinted to make out their faces from thousands of meters above, but it was
no use. It's not like I've ever been lucky to begin with. I knew them only by
the sound of their voice. The man to the left was Ian, a peculiar egocentrist
whose scratchy voice was identifiable a mile away. To the right was his soft
spoken friend. I never found out the friend's name.

I was having a particularly dull day watching clouds pass, so I tilted my
watery ears towards the field and my favourite hobby: eavesdropping! Ian was in
the middle of a lecture on the "housing market". I think boring conversations
are a human thing. It still beats philosophising about clouds, I suppose.

"It's a spider!" Ian screamed, darting off towards the polluted city. His
friend chased after, wheezing.

People are lame.

---

The following morning, while I wondered if there was water on the moon, I felt
a twitch. Something was tickling me like a paint brush where my whole body was
the canvas. I was shaking, bouncing with glee (or was it terror?). I felt
energised, as if zapped by lightning and vaporised, ready to ascend.

My mind unfogged for the first time in this life, remembering the bouncing
drops on the other side of the horizon. I was an insignificant rain drop, and
as the blinding sunlight hit me, I became a part of something more.

I let go of myself and let the light shine through me, watching as my
companions around me followed suit. We enmeshed ourselves in a flurry of
colours: red, green, blue, and everything in between. Our glow illuminated
throughout the area for what seemed like forever in an arc of beauty, and there
I was, a part of the rainbow.

Personally, I poured down a shimmering stream of red. I smiled down at the
plains as I saw Ian and his friend on their daily stroll.

---

"I'm telling you, no matter what I do, I never seem to find the one! I just...
I just can't believe he dumped me. It's bad enough that most of my love
interests are straight. I'm a failure, you know? I don't know why I bother
having hope that I'll find true love someday. Sometimes it feels like I should
give up trying. On days like today, _mi cielo_ is grey and weary. I'm hopeless.
A lost cause..."

Ian rambled on about his supposedly "pathetic" life. I was too enchanted by my
new found light to see faults in anyone, let alone Ian or his friend. Somebody
would have to fill in for me. Ian's friend stepped in.

"Hey, when the time is right, you'll find your special somebody. Staring at
your feet kicking around dust all day won't help you feel better. Look up! It's
a rainbow. Isn't *that* something to smile about?"

I for one felt that a rainbow was something to smile about, and though I
couldn't make out Ian's face from here, I could only imagine a countenace of
pure joy. I wiggled, channeling the sun in their direction, to make the
spectacle just a bit more beautiful. Ian drawled on, as infatuated with the
sight as I was.

"Yeah. I guess it's pretty okay. Thanks."

---

When the evening came, my rainbow died out; as the sun set, so did my spirits.
To keep myself distracted, I was running in existential circles, pondering the
vast stars, asking if there are rainbows there too. I concluded that it didn't
matter if there were rainbows beyond my home, if there aren't anybody to
appreciate the light. I proceeded to busy myself with the Fermi paradox.

I was snapped out of my daze by footsteps down below. During the day time, it's
normal for people come and go, but late at night, it caught me by surprise. I
perked up to identify the visitor.

"He was right. It *was* beautiful."

I immediately recognised the visitor as Ian.

"Heh. I suppose he was also right that I'm chasing the impossible. How he'd put
it again? Oh, that I'm looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

That part I hadn't heard this morning. Much like Ian, I've always been a bit
self-centred. I never considered that Ian and his friends talk to each other
when they're not around on my field.

"But I think he was wrong on one count. I don't think I'm searching for the
impossible, because I don't need to be searching for anything at all. I don't
need a life-long partner to be happy, just good friends like him, or the beauty
of a rainbow arc."

If I had tear ducts, I would be welling up right now. And here I was thinking
that *I* get philosophical late at night. Once again, I'm the one who has
something to learn from Ian about life.

"It doesn't matter if I ever find gold if I can keep chasing rainbows."

_Based on "The Rainbow Passage"_
